We have had the chance to interview Lee Hickey from Games Faction Ltd, creators of Inkvaders and Trigger Happy Christmas for the iPhone and iPod Touch:
Techulous: Where did the idea come from to create “Trigger Happy Christmas”
The idea came from my business partner, Malcolm. He’d always wanted to do a Christmas game that was the exact opposite of what people would expect – rather than twee music and happy scenes, something just the opposite. It seemed a perfect fit for the visual style we came up with for Inkvaders and it just happened that we had a gap in our development schedule at the right time of year. So, Santa with a flame-thrower it was then 
Techulous: What can you tell us about the game?
Trigger Happy Christmas is a 2D shooter which we’re calling a ‘Present Defence’ game All of the elves have gone a bit bonkers – perhaps they were infected with something. Anyway, they’ve hot-wired Santa’s sleigh and are trying to steal all the presents. It’s happened in the past but this time Santa has had enough so he decides the only course of action is to shoot them all in the face and put an end to it once and for all. The player’s role is to collect all the presents which are falling from the sleigh and group them into piles of 5 on the Tele-Present 2000 (Santa’s trademarked present rapid-distribution system). At the same time, the player needs to fend off swarms of elves who are trying to gather up the presents for their own purposes.
Techulous: How will the game differ from Inkvaders?
Unlike Inkvaders, Trigger Happy Christmas all takes place around one particular area – and it is more about defending one zone than progressing through a series of levels. Basic ammo is unlimited and new weapons and power-ups are given over time by Rudolph tossing them down from the sleigh – flamethrowers, machine guns… they’re all there. The game’s focus is more about racking up a lot of points quickly and seeing if you can get a high score. We’ve also added in the option of sending electronic Christmas cards from the app. Just like Inkvaders though, we’ve gone for a nice hand-drawn, cartoon look with extremely visceral deaths
Techulous: Do you have any plans for a sequel or additional content for Inkvaders in the future?
We have plans for a much bigger Inkvaders sequel that may well come to additional platforms as well as iPhone. Imagine a full-scale platformer with vast levels, multitudes of bespoke enemies, even crazier weapons, new locations… perhaps we’ll even get to find out what the inkvaders are after and why on Earth (or Mars) they’re pinching all of those cows. We also have plans for additional content for Inkvaders, mainly with the addition of boss characters but we wren’t sure when we’ll get to add them in yet.
Techulous: Inkvaders was a very popular iPhone/iPod title, did the public reaction surprise you?
Yes, in a way. We were surprised by how much people seemed to like the visuals of Inkvaders and the way we ‘broke the fourth wall’. Malcolm, the other half of Games Faction, really did a terrific job there. It’s really helped us solidify a coherent visual, and comedic, style for the rest of our games.
Techulous: Can you tell us about any future game plans?
Well, I’ve already mentioned the big plans we have for Inkvaders and we have other games planned in the Trigger Happy ‘X’ line. Probably like most developers, we have a huge list of games that we want to develop and it is just a matter of choosing the right ones. One thing I can say is that we are very interested in web and mobile and the ways those two platforms can be used together in games. We’re very interested in multi-player too which is something we want to try and concentrate on in the future. These are exciting times to be a developer.
Techulous: Your games have a unique look about them, Inkvaders for example was superb graphically…what can you tell us about working with the iPhone/iPod hardware in graphical terms
For iPhone development, we use Unity – this lets us focus purely on the visuals and gameplay without worrying too much about the technical side. As a person who has spent the vast majority of his career build engine technology, it’s a strange feeling The iPhone is certainly not at the same level capability-wise as modern consoles or PCs for instance, but it is a pretty capable piece of kit if used in the right ways. We focus on staying away from fancy shader techniques and all those technological bells-and-whistles, preferring good old fashioned quality textures. As our background is in 3D games, we still use all the same techniques for authoring and animating however. Inkvaders is actually a 3D world, and the characters are 3D but they’re all just constrained to a 2D plain.
Techulous: Can you tell us about how you came to setup Games Faction
We set up Games Faction nearly 4 years ago now. At the time, we’d both worked in the mainstream games industry for many years and really needed a change. We wanted total creative freedom to make the games we wanted to make and doing it yourself is really the only way of doing it. At that time, digital distribution was really beginning to take off so that was our focus. We made a PC real-time strategy game called Project Aftermath. After that, we felt like trying some smaller games; ones that are quick to develop so we can try out new ideas. Also, neither of us had ever worked on a 2D game so it seemed the obvious thing to try. Over the next year, I think we’ll most likely work towards merging these two seemingly disparate threads of our development, particularly with a follow-up to Inkvaders.
Games Faction is a British games developer and online publisher set up in February 2006 by Lee Hickey and Malcolm Reed, two industry veterans with over 20 years professional experience and a shared passion for making great games.
A self funded company, Games Faction is committed to creating innovative and diverse games and is proud to be a key player in the emerging wave of Indie developers – an exciting ‘movement’ brought about by the increase in new digital delivery formats and the demand for innovation and change.
i want an inkvaders update please.. when i bought it i said that is the best game but now i am really bored of the same thing over and ober so update and also make trigger x mas free cause itis not a complete game is just like a lite game its too short .. and inkvaders i a way better so keep working on inkvaders